I remember the first time I let my daughter walk to school on her own, I was a bag of nerves. I peered out the window as she crossed the road, I sprinted up the street to hide behind a bush on her route and I saw her to the very school gates without her ever knowing I was there. I repeated this process for several days. Eventually I realised I was being foolish, she knew how to get there, she knew the ‘green cross code’ loads of children and parents were walking this route at the same time, I had nothing to worry about.

If we want our children to grow and flourish, we must let go, we spend all our time educating them, teaching them right and wrong and preparing them to fulfil their potential to have rich, full, and independent lives. Letting them go is hard, but we know we must do it for their own development and future.

Similarly, when running a business particularly as it gets busier and you take on more staff you must start letting go and stop being a control freak. Allow them more responsibility, let them take ownership and make decisions. It will be hard but we can achieve this through training, education and putting in place robust systems. Consequently, the most important part of this process is recruitment.

We need to find someone who we can wholeheartedly trust with our business, think of every manager as a godparent, they need to care, worry, and feel as great as we do when it succeeds.

The reality is without these people to help us and share the load it will impact on the business growth which will ultimately fail the day you stop working as it relies solely on you.

Finding someone to share the load, can free up your time, enjoy the rewards of running a successful business and focus on making sure it continues to thrive rather than being stuck in the day to day.

So, start thinking about who that godparent might be and if you do not have one in the team already then maybe it is time to start thinking about recruiting them and think of the possibilities it could provide you with.

Then maybe one day your business will be able to cross the road on its own….

Gary Maskell

Advice4business : Overprotective father

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